Evercade Game of the Month 2023 #8: Chew Chew Mimic

Welcome to November! The year’s nearly over, but there’s still two more Game of the Month titles for Evercade VS and Evercade EXP players to enjoy!

Game of the Month is a programme for Evercade VS and Evercade EXP owners where you can download a free game every month between April and December of 2023. You can enjoy the full version of each game without limits for a month, at which point it will be replaced with a brand new game. In February 2024, all of the Game of the Month titles from 2023 will be collected together for the Indie Heroes 3 cartridge, together with a few cartridge-exclusive games to sweeten the deal even further, and you’ll be able to add them to your Evercade library permanently!

This month, we’ve got a tasty treat for you to enjoy: Chew Chew Mimic from Lowtek Games and Rigg’d Games, both veterans of our Indie Heroes series.

Ally Low of Lowtek Games likely needs no introduction to longstanding Evercade players. His previous games Flea! and Tapeworm Disco Puzzle are among the most popular and well-received Indie Heroes titles we’ve published to date.

What you may not know is that as well as developing charming, addictive games, Ally is also a passionate advocate for dyslexia awareness in gaming. As someone who deals with dyslexia himself, Ally has always found it challenging to focus on games that have large blocks of text, and as such his own work has always been designed to minimise reading and concentrate on engaging the brain in other ways: through creative, fun, challenging and puzzling experiences. Chew Chew Mimic is no exception.

John Riggs of Rigg’d Games, meanwhile, is a prolific YouTuber with a popular channel that explores the world of retro game collecting, cartridge repair and just enjoying classic games from years gone by. In recent years, Riggs has got into game development and production, with his previous Indie Heroes release Yeah Yeah Beebiss II being a sequel to a notorious piece of “lost media” that may never have existed in the first place!

John and Ally met up at a retro gaming event a while back. John pitched the game idea to Ally, and as it happened Ally had been wanting to create a puzzle game with a similar inspiration — so the partnership was born!

What inspiration, you ask? Well, maybe read the title out loud and see if you can think of any other puzzle games that sound a bit like that. Maybe games from the first 128-bit home console. Maybe involving mice. Maybe I’ve said too much.

Anyway, Chew Chew Mimic is a puzzle game that tasks you with helping out a crafty mimic awaiting its next meal. For those who don’t play enough role-playing games, a mimic is a monster that pretends to be a treasure chest and which has a taste for greedy but heroic types. I’m sure you can see how one aspect can help the other.

In each stage of Chew Chew Mimic, the mimic sits in a static location, while one or more knights show up in search of treasure. Your aim is to guide the knights to the mimic’s gaping maw, ideally allowing them to collect sparkling gold coins along the way. Nothing makes a knight taste better than indulging their desire for monetary compensation prior to consumption.

In order to guide the knights, you’ll be provided with several puzzle pieces on each stage. You must place these at strategic locations in the level to ensure that the knights end up in the mimic’s mouth, and that they don’t meet a sticky end via some other means along the way.

Arrow pieces are self-explanatory: when a knight walks over them, he will turn and begin moving in the direction the arrow indicates. Sometimes you’ll have to get creative, though — there might not be enough arrow pieces available to lay out a complete, step-by-step path for the knights.

To that end, you should also know that the various knights you’ll encounter as you progress through the game have their own distinctive characteristics that you’ll need to bear in mind as you play. For example, the yellow knight who appears in the earliest levels will always turn left whenever he reaches an obstacle directly in front of himself. This includes puzzle pieces that block his path.

As you progress through the game, new mechanics and challenges will be introduced, and you’ll have to master them in order to succeed. But we’ll leave the details of those up for you to discover!

Controlling Chew Chew Mimic is simple. Use the D-Pad to move the cursor and select one of the puzzle pieces from those that are available in the palette at the top of the screen. Then press the B button to confirm your choice.

Once you’ve selected a piece, move the cursor around the level with the D-Pad and press B to place the piece, or A to cancel placement. When you think you’ve nailed the solution to a puzzle, press Start to begin “play” mode, where the knights will begin moving. If you press Start again, they will move at double speed — good for longer levels if you’re in a hurry. You can also press A while play mode is active to reset the knights back to their starting position.

If you make a complete hash of things and want to start the whole level over with all the pieces back in your palette, press Select — there’s no penalty for doing so. You will, however, get a better ending if you successfully manage to collect the coins on the stages as well as feeding the mimic.

A top tip if you’re struggling to figure out a solution is to start at the mimic and work backwards. What are the movements the knights need to make to reach it, and what interventions do you need to put in place to ensure they make those movements?

It’s also helpful to visualise the knights’ movements. Imagine drawing arrows from the knights’ starting positions, and plot out the route they’ll take, plopping puzzle pieces down along the way as necessary. Take it a step at a time — and bear in mind the rules about how the knights move without intervention — and you’ll master the art of mimic-feeding in no time.

Plenty of challenging puzzle stages await, so best of luck to you — and be sure to save a little room for dessert.

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To get started with Chew Chew Mimic and the Game of the Month programme for 2023, connect your Evercade VS or EXP to the Internet via the Network option in Settings, then perform a system update to the latest available firmware version.

When you’re all updated, you’re ready to go — start the game through the VS or EXP logo on the left of the main Evercade menu and get ready to begin your knight-chomping adventure!

Note that we always recommend that Evercade users keep their consoles up to date as a matter of course to ensure maximum compatibility with new cartridge releases and implement fixes to known issues. Please see the Evercade support pages for full patch notes; all new firmware updates are cumulative, so update once and you’ll see all the benefits, including new features and even sometimes new secret games to enjoy!

Please note that saves from the Game of the Month edition of Chew Chew Mimic will not carry across to the Indie Heroes Collection 3 cartridge when that releases in February of 2024.